Napoleon of Brooklyn
by Coin
Summary: Random one shot from Spot's perspective.


_I don't own Newsies…blah blah blah.  
  
Why Spot? I'm not sure. No offense, but I'm not a big fan of Spot. He's ok, and fun to quote, but I'm not that big of a fan. However I love all my newsies and here is my little one-shot for all the Spot fans out there._

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I became a newsie the way most newsies did. I first started by selling the evening edition after school. As my family seemed to get poorer and poorer I began to skip school and sell twice a day. Then my father finally said it: 'Maybe its time we took him down to the nuns; we can't keep him here no more.' Thinking it over, I thought it was the end of the world and in a way it was. It was the end of the world as I knew it. But I had no reason to be afraid.  
  
Dozens of boys had gone through the same exact thing. Maybe their story wasn't just like mine, but we all had one thing in common. We were abandoned. We all had been, so I don't see why I was making such a big deal about my own situation.  
  
It was nearing the turn of the century in New York. Immigrants, like me, were abundant in every building of the city and adjustment to the melting pot of NYC was never easy. The Italians didn't like the Jews (and vice versa); they stole each other's business. No one liked the Irish, they were loud and they drank. The Chinese were considered less than human, forced to manual labor with wages no more than pennies. Blacks, despite the end of the Civil War, were still considered by most to be second class citizens.  
  
Fathers, no matter what their background, worked sixteen hour days. Their only comfort was usually the bottle. The lucky kids got dads who hated bars. It seemed as though mothers could do nothing. Trying to keep a family together proved too much for most, and they all seemed to, at one point or another, fall apart. I'd seen my mother cry at the kitchen table, for lack of anything else to do.  
  
And no the Brooklyn Lodging House wasn't an abandoned warehouse filled to the brim with unruly newsies with names like "Cutter" and "Ace" with girls gracing their laps and poker games in every corner. It was quiet, dinner was being served, and my father had shoved me in the door. His last words were good luck.  
  
I knew most of the newsies, and adjusted quickly to my new life. It wasn't that different than my life before and I was ten. In my mind it was about time I had gotten into the world anyway.  
  
It was a week after I moved in that the Strike of 1893 went on. After that things changed. Sure we were still treated like dogs, but we felt like we had more power now. Leaders were being appointed in every lodging house like our own secret fraternity. You listened to your leader, you helped your brothers.  
  
So when I turned fourteen and was appointed the second leader of Brooklyn, I was a little excited. I had power over every newsie in the toughest borough in the entire city. Everyone looked to Brooklyn for an example and I was ready to give it.  
  
I may have been a little to stern when it came to my newsies. Most were terrified of me, but it was all an act. I didn't really rule Brooklyn. I was just a kid with a big mouth and a cane.  
  
Being the infamous Spot Conlon didn't keep me fed; I didn't have the life of a king. I was just a typical teenager, who happened to have a small army of boys at his beck and call.  
  
We mostly got into fights. Usually with kids who went to school. I had shiners that took up half of my face, bruises that covered my body. It wasn't really the glamorous life of a leader that I had expected but I trudged on.  
  
The power was worth it.  
  
Then the second strike started. Jack Kelly, leader of Manhattan, had rallied his newsies into striking with the help of this David Jacobs kid. Brooklyn reluctantly joined and we fought for the rights of all the newsies and working children of New York.  
  
And we lost anyway. Sure the city had promised better treatment for working children, but we had lost.  
  
I was done. I was done with empty promises from men in nice silk ties with brand new briefcases. The life of a newsie was not what we had cracked it up to be. The boys and I, we revered our position as important, respectable. We were nothing more than a bunch of little boys, fighting and drinking. Pretending to be older than we were.  
  
I was just Liam Conlon. A lost boy. But it was time I became a man. I walked away from the papers and grew up.  
  
I was done being infamous, I was ready to go back to reality.


End file.
